THE SURFER (2025)

I have always felt that Nicolas Cage is more of a force of nature than a human. A tornado of a being; an energy that can be harnessed for brilliant cinematic creations or catastrophic misfires. Much like a loaded pistol, the direction depends very much on who is holding the weapon. And there are many examples of directors who knew how to hold Cage just right: The Coen Brothers Raising Arizona (1987), David Lynch Wild at Heart (1990), Mike Figgis Leaving Las Vegas (1995), Spike Jones Adaptation (2002) and Panos Cosmatos with Mandy (2018). They aimed Cage’s lightning straight into a bottle. However, when placed into shaky hands, that same gun buckshots Cage all over the place, ricochetting into such calamities as Ghost Rider (2007), Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011), Renfield (2023) and The Surfer. Here we can see Cage’s chaotic energy edited into a laughable method acting madness exercise at best. To put it simply, it’s not a good sign that I was rooting for everyone but Cage’s character throughout. His over-the-top cartoonish antics run thin amidst a nonsensical script that longs to be mentioned alongside Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1071). It all had me asking: “Was Renfield this bad?” It was. They are equally bad, just in slightly different ways, with slightly different Cage-wrecks. The Surfer aims to say something about reality, capitalism and toxic masculinity, with its collection of paper-thin musings artfully put in front of us, with blanks that we’re responsible for filling? Perhaps it made some sense to some of those involved? Or what I cynically suspect is, it’s the kind of bat-shit mess that leave viewers confused and, fingers-crossed, collectively too insecure to admit they didn’t “get”, culminating into applause for this fiasco. Poor Cage. I got exhausted just watching him, sweatin’ with his mouth ajar, trying to create a perfect storm, but it was all just pointless destruction.

WATCH OR NOT: NOT

Additional musings: There is potential for some great memes born from this film.